The News Without Comment

Lenovo and Disney have partnered to bring a new Star Wars-themed app to life using a never before seen AR headset developed by Lenovo.

Revealed at the 2017 D23 Expo, the AR experience called Star Wars: Jedi Challenges was “designed to give Star Wars fans an opportunity to recapture some of their favorite moments from Star Wars films in ways never before possible,” including Holochess—and evidenced by the lightsaber prominently featured in the teaser—also a lightsaber sequence that the creators calls “essential for any Jedi experience.”

Information regarding Lenovo’s AR headset is still thin on the ground. From the trailer, it appears the headset is a smartphone-based device with a reflective display, a design concept explored by early AR startups like META and SEER. If the new Lenovo AR headset does indeed follow that concept, it would store a display panel (in this case a smartphone) in the top portion of the headset and reflect the image on the two panes of glass in front of your eyes. At least two equally-spaced integrated cameras can been seen in a close-up, most likely used for positional tracking.

The teaser video says a “compatible mobile device is required” to run the app.

image courtesy Lenovo

Lenovo/Disney suggest signing up for the Star Wars AR experience at http://ift.tt/2uqiLUg. Upon signing up for updates, the website flashes this message:

We will let you know when Star Wars™: Jedi Challenges is available for pre-order.